Eden Hill Journal

Comments, dreams, stories, and rantings from a middle-aged native of Maine living on a shoestring and a prayer in the woods of Maine. My portion of the family farm is to be known as Eden Hill Farm just because I want to call it that and because that's the closest thing to the truth that I could come up with. If you enjoy what I write, email me or make a comment. If you enjoy Eden Hill, come visit.

Wednesday, March 20, 2019

John Q. Public and the 737 MAX

Introducing John Q
Sometimes I get the feeling that I'm just a little guy, someone of miniscule significance, basically a nobody. I think the first time that really sank in was when I was driving on the New Jersey Turnpike two or three decades ago. On that special day I think I saw more people in cars in just a matter of a couple of hours than there are in the entire state of Maine, even on a good day. Well that was the impression I had anyway. And when I realized that was only a tiny fraction of the population just around the I-95 corridor... well that started me thinking about just how tiny I actually am. It wasn't the illusion of grandeur I get when I'm back home here in the Maine Highlands and that thought is exactly the thought that was going through my mind that day.
So while I write this blog post I'm going to think of myself in that generic sense and I'm going to take on a mundane personality, a fictional character of course, and I am going to discus the current hottest topic in aviation history known as the Boeing 737 MAX MCAS mystery. I'm going to be that Googling armchair mechanic with too much time on his hands because basically he's retired and has nothing better to do on this the final day of winter. He certainly isn't wasting his time trying to figure out how he is going to get laid this week, or next even, or even this year because basically after fifteen sexless years he's pretty much given up on that fantasy. In other words, I'm going to be John Q. Public, mister nobody, armchair quarterback whose lifetime is ominously limited but whose domain knows no bounds.
John Q. Public is an American of course. He has to be because he enjoys his Constitutional Right to free speech. He can say anything he wants as long as he doesn't intend to harm anybody. He gets to define what the truth is in his world and what makes good sense but he also is free to speculate, to calculate possibilities and probabilities and since he's not an expert on anything he doesn't have to get all snarled up in stuff like statistical probability math and calculus and physics and vector diagrams and Global Warming and all the other jazz that seems to complicate things these days. John Q. Public, in other words, is a simple man.
Call him John Q for short.

So let's get down to business.

Let's start out on the Internet ferreting out a few tidbits of information.
There was an airplane crash in Africa this month of one of Boeing's 737 MAX airliners. All on board were killed in the horrific crash as the airplane burrowed into the ground. The crash had similarities to another crash of this same new Boeing airliner type in Indonesia back in October of 2018 and there are enough similarities between the two crashes that significant figures of authority around the world concluded that until the cause of these crashes is known and the associated problems identified and fixed the airplanes don't deserve to be in the air. They can't be trusted. Well that's what the media has been telling John Q anyway.The 737 MAX is grounded!
Not only that but the two crashes are shrouded in mystery and intrigue.

Here's an introductory article on phys.org for those who aren't already familiar with the airplane and the situation. It was published today March 20, 2019. The article identifies the suspected cause of the two crashes as the Boeing MCAS (em-cass) automatic wing stall avoidance system unique to this particular modern Boeing 737 MAX version.
Two days ago this same website published an article claiming that Boeing has already worked out a fix that involves a software update to the system plus pilot training.

There is a picture in this Seattle Times article showing the angle of attack sensor and airspeed pitot tubes on the copilot side of the airplane apparently during some ground maintenance. This gives you a great reference to know what they are talking about when they talk about a faulty angle of attack sensor. The pitot tubes are protected here by yellow hoses that would be removed prior to any flight but the angle of attack sensor is fully exposed. Bear in mind that these devices are designed to be undamaged when these airplanes hurdle through rain and sleet and you name it at 550 miles per hour or more. They're rugged.

More stunningly informative graphics are included in this New York Times report dated November 16, 2018 covering the October crash in Indonesia.

In fact you can take these New York Times graphics showing altitude plotted over the actual local time and you can compare them with charts in this Indonesian report Figure 5 page 14 and observe that the MCAS problem reared its ugly head just when the pilot fully retracted flaps and then vanished for a short time after the pilot again extended flaps. When flaps were fully retracted the second time then the malfunction returned and it remained right up until the crash.
This same Indonesian report reveals the official procedure worked out by the industry after the Indonesian crash for dealing with this problem if it happens again, see page 41.
In the news just last night and today there is a hero story about a guest pilot hitching a ride in the jump seat of the cockpit of this same Indonesian airliner during the late night October 28 flight in to Jakarta the night before the crash arriving in Jakarta four minutes before midnight. Flight control and display issues occurred on that flight, and what seems to be the very same MCAS malfunction made its appearance during that flight. The story goes that this guest pilot saved the airplane and all on board that night flight by showing the pilots how to defeat the malfunctioning MCAS system, yet the airplane was turned around and deemed safe enough to fly early the very next morning October 29 just six and a half hours after its arrival. Taking off at 6:20 local time it crashed just twelve minutes into the flight. The airplane took off 35 minutes after its scheduled takeoff time but even that represented only a six and a half hour turnaround time during which maintenance serviced the malfunctions from the previous evening's flight. After takeoff

All that information has John Q's head spinning to say the least.

Here's a source that seems to be updated frequently. This article in the Aviation Herald is covering the Addis Ababa, Ethiopia March 10 crash. They report the crash location as N8.8772 E39.2512 which can be located on Google Earth. That flight lasted about six minutes. The airport elevation is 7,657 feet according to Google. The airplane was reported to have climbed to 9,000 feet and had descended to 8,600 feet at the last reported transponder position. At that point it was only about 500 feet above the terrain so it clearly didn't climb very high during its whole flight, maybe 1,400 feet or so? The article points out that controllers tried to notify the pilots that they were entering an HA (R)-1 military restricted zone but control did not receive a reply to that message.
Well that sure does have John Q disturbed! What the heck!

The pilots had notified control they were having control problems and needed to come around and land and the flight path and final crash site seem to indicate that is what they were in the process of attempting but they weren't very far above the terrain at that point. There wasn't any room for MCAS to issue an erroneous pitch down command and the aircrew to respond. But was that the problem? So far the flight data hasn't been released by Ethiopian authorities so nobody seems to know anything yet. Time will tell.

Monday, March 18, 2019

Rubber Dogshit

I've been trying to keep up with the Boeing fiasco ever since the second crash of the new 737 MAX last weekend. Oddly enough I have found that my own experiences in my four years of Vietnam-era draft avoidance back in the late 60's and early 70's have been an enormous help in my understanding of the situation. I joined the U.S. Air Force in late 1967 on the promise that I would be trained as an airborne weather equipment specialist. That never happened but the Air Force was nice to me anyway. They set me up in a training school in Illinois and taught me enough for me to be qualified to work in certain large aircraft navigation and autopilot shops and then they sent me to North Dakota for a winter while I got my feet wet by working on their latest model, the H model, of Boeing-built B-52 bombers and KC-135 refueling tankers.
After that winter, which still holds the distinction as the coldest winter of my life, the Air Force transferred me to Fort Worth, Texas where I worked in a brand new avionics shop, the first ever avionics shop for the then brand new FB-111A. It was there in Fort Worth that I spent the hottest summer of my life. If it ain't the cold it's the heat, eh?
So while we waited in Fort Worth for deliveries to begin of the new FB-111A's we did maintenance on a fleet of older B-52 D models that were rotating out to Guam for use in the bombing campaign in the Vietnam War. Those old planes rotated out for six months of use in the war but they never came back to our base again. We were by then an FB-111A base. Before they left, though, and mind you this is from old memories which may by now be flawed, but I do have a memory of being taken out to the flight line by a couple of older technicians in my avionics shop and being required by them to crawl through a small opening into the back section of a B-52 fuselage near the tail while the plane sat on the flight line in early Texas summer sunshine and as quickly as I possibly could so I would not succumb to heat stroke swapping out a faulty horizontal stabilizer pitch trim jack screw. It was when the corresponding horizontal stabilizer pitch trim jack screw in the 737 MAX was located in the wreckage of last weeks crash in Ethiopia and found to be in its full nose down trim location that it became clear that this recent accident was probably caused by the same glitch that caused the crash back in October of the Lion Air 737 MAX.
Basically it appears that these airplanes both crashed when a new avionics system malfunctioned and fought against pilot authority while the system - not the pilots but the automatic flight control system itself - attempted repeatedly to initiate a slow, large radius inverted loop, a stunt you wouldn't even see a test pilot attempt in an airplane like this, an airshow stunt that you won't find in any of the videos of these planes when they appeared at air shows over the past few years - an inverted negative-G loop that begins with a power-on pitch down command generously offered up by whoever did the computer programming for this new 737 version.
The system itself, unique to the Boeing 737 MAX design, is referred to as MCAS or Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System. According to these visuals which appear to have official Boeing origin, the MCAS system is activated when the airplane is satisfying four parameters:

The airplane's angle of attack is high

The autopilot system is off

The flaps are up (meaning they are not extended in their takeoff/landing position)

The airplane is "steeply turning"

As near as I have been able to tell, no other airliner anywhere in the world possesses a system like this. Although the idea of automatic stall avoidance pitch trim has been implemented in autopilot systems in some general aviation airplanes, it has never before been attempted in an airliner. And this is for a very good reason as near as I have been able to figure. It's too dangerous. It puts the airplane at too much risk of crashing.
So why did Boeing think it was worth the risk to implement this system into this new design?
Good question.

Plug your nose people because the answer stinks.

From everything I have been able to gather, Boeing implemented this system, gave it a new name and built it into this new version of the 737 to compensate for an aerodynamic shift from the previous model 737 caused by the upgraded engine, an engine whose size didn't allow for the same engine mount as the previous 737 engine mount. To keep the engine up away from the ground sufficiently when the airplane is being operated on the ground, Boeing designers moved its position on the wing both forward and up, not by a lot but some, apparently by enough.
The claim seems to be that this new engine location had an effect on the flight characteristics of this new 737 variant. Boeing wanted to roll out this new model and have existing 737 pilots - pilots trained and experienced in the previous 737 design - have these experienced pilots be able to just step into these new planes and find them so familiar that no additional flight training would be required. It was a sales pitch. So here, Mr. or Ms. airline pilot, you are already trained and qualified in the 737, you're fine to go in this new design. Flies just like what you're already used to flying.
Except...
We're not going to worry you by informing you that we have made a bit of a change to this thing and added a new automatic system that has never been tried before in airliner design. And oh, we don't want to alarm you so we just won't tell you about this new system.

I shit you not!

Pilots are coming out and blowing the whistle on Boeing and pointing out to each other and to the general public and pointing out to anyone else that will listen that pilots were not informed of this new system and were not given training on how to handle the airplane if this system fails. To make things even worse, most pilots didn't have access to flight simulators for this new model so they had no way to prepare themselves for when this system failed. And apparently it did fail in at least two of these new airplanes. Both times the failure overcame any prior 737 pilot training and all on board these two airplanes were killed.

So that's what I've come up with so far in my Google-driven self-education.
There has been quite a lot of discussion about what should these pilots have done to survive this malfunction. What did they do? Why didn't it work for them? And what should they have done instead?
So far nobody has answered these questions. Both in the Indonesia crash last October and in this month's crash in Africa there should be answers to the question what did the pilots do. Those answers should be in the black boxes that automatically record all flight control commands but so far that information hasn't been released. So all I have to go on so far is common sense and speculation, both highly influenced by speculation and system familiarization being generously offered by others on the Internet.
The general consensus of others seems to be that these pilots should have recognized the problem as somehow being introduced and enabled by electrical pitch trim circuits. So the pilots should have turned off those circuits. The consensus is that if they did that then it would stop this pitch trim system from forcing the airplane into a pitch-down condition, this inverted loop condition I spoke of earlier.

That makes sense, right? That's a good knee-jerk first response. Just turn it off.
Except...

And it gets tricky here, counterintuitive...
Turning this system off disables switches located prominently on each pilot's yoke that give the pilots control of pitch trim. Turning the system off by turning off the bypass switches disables the very mechanism that these pilots were probably using to control their airplanes. How so? Well it would appear that when either the pilot or the copilot use these yoke-mounted pitch trim switches, that momentarily disables the new MCAS system - key word momentarily.
So let's say that either the pilot or the copilot did overcome the death-defying MCAS system momentarily using these yoke-mounted controls. Then what?
Well if they held these buttons down, then the pitch trim would go to a nose up condition, initiating a nose-up positive G loop. Oops! Time to let go! So they let go. Meanwhile the malfunction continues and the MCAS system triggers again and the negative-G loop starts again.

So what to do???
If you don't shut off the bypass switches and disable the electric pitch trim circuits then the problem persists.
If you do shut off the bypass switches then you no longer can save the airplane by using the yoke pitch trim switches. You have to do it by hand by cranking the pitch control wheels. That's more than likely not something a pilot can do quickly enough to save the airplane if the malfunctioning MCAS system has sent pitch trim to maximum nose down.
So what do you do?
Nobody seems to know yet what the pilots did choose to do. So far that's either still a secret or it was never recorded in the black boxes to begin with. That seems unlikely so the rational explanation seems to be it's still a secret.
The granddaughter of the sister of well-known consumer advocate Ralph Nader was killed in the crash last week. She was on board the Boeing 737 MAX that crashed last Sunday in Ethiopia and she was killed in that crash. So it's not likely that it will go over well if Boeing or the government or the airlines try to keep secrets. No doubt all authorities involved will want to keep secrets but that's the one remaining mistake they can make. If they keep secrets, then public trust in Boeing, public trust in the government agencies tasked with protecting passenger safety, and public trust in the airline industry in general will all suffer.
Already the flying public has lost trust in the airplane. There are a lot of people who are reacting to this by committing themselves to never fly on a 737 MAX. Most people will probably generalize and never fly again on any Boeing 737 of any vintage. Some will never fly in a Boeing airliner again, like EVER! Never ever!

If you've ever watched the movie Top Gun where actor Tom Cruise plays a Navy F-14 pilot there's a line early in the movie where after Tom Cruise pulls a stunt in his F-14 his commander calls him and his teammate in for a good reaming out and the commander assures them that if they ever do that again they'll be flying rubber dog shit out of Hong Kong for the remainder of their flying careers. I've been thinking, if Boeing screws this up, these new 737 MAX airplanes will have to be relegated to a similar use. Nobody will trust them as airliners again.
It's too bad too. There's a good chance that this airplane, this 737 MAX, is the best and the safest airliner ever manufactured by anyone bar none. It was destined for that reputation. But these two crashes and if it comes to it future crashes caused by this new MCAS system will most certainly destroy that legacy before it even can develop. The fleet, if it is not physically destroyed by executive order, will have to find other applications other than as passenger airplanes.
Like what? Top Gun is an old movie. The F-14 is retired now. We can assume that rubber dog shit is no longer produced in Hong Kong. So what other use?
They could become military refueling tankers to replace the aging KC-135, a relic of the 1960's still serving around the world. That's one possibility. Put a big fuel tank down under the main deck and this airplane could serve as a gas station in any sky anywhere around the world.
They could become cargo airplanes. Maybe Amazon could use them or UPS.
Here's a thought. President Trump could order a bunch of them to ferry illegal immigrants back to their country of origin. Or maybe initiate flights to transport undocumented immigrants down to Venezuela, drop them off down there and on the return trip ferry in properly documented green-card holding immigrant workers. That would put a lot of these brand new airplanes back into service. Plus it would restore Boeing's reputation if none of these 737 MAX planes that nobody trusts anymore ever crashed again despite heavy use.
So there are ways to get beyond this Boeing nightmare. But keeping secrets about the real cause of these crashes is nothing short of corporate suicide. Ralph Nader will make sure of that.

By the way, I haven't brought this up yet but this new system, this MCAS system, it isn't new. It is a rose by another name but it isn't new. For years the aviation industry has wanted to install systems on airplanes that would overpower pilots who bring their airplanes too close to wing stall conditions. When a wing stalls it loses its lift and causes the airplane to either quit climbing or start falling. Automatic systems that electrically command a pitch down maneuver without the pilot's consent whenever his airplane approaches a stall do exist and are included in some general aviation autopilot systems. Up until now they have been deemed too risky for the airline industry. Why else do you suppose the MCAS system was designed not to operate when flaps are down? After all, flaps are down when the airplane is being flown close to the ground, in takeoff and landing situations and in slow low-level approaches. That's when most fatal stalls occur so why disable the system then? Because it's such a risky thing to program an airplane to pitch itself down when it's already flying close to the ground, that's why.
It's dangerous!
Anyway, let me give that link again...

Oh and as to the question what should the pilots have dome? What could they have done to save their airplanes? How should they have shut down this MCAS system long enough to get the airplanes safely back to the airport?
I don't know but why not extend the flaps a little and see if that shuts MCAS off?
Just a thought...
It's too late now to do that, or at least let's hope it is. Let's hope that Boeing removes MCAS entirely from these airliners. But if they insist on keeping it, why not train pilots to instinctively extend some flaps to safely disable a malfunctioning MCAS?

Break the code of secrecy. Inform pilots of the system and train them how to survive when the system malfunctions.
Just a thought...

Keeping Warm in a Cold Maine Winter

In Maine, this winter began early. In fact, it began almost four and a half months ago. That's the entire month of November plus December, January, February, and a week and a half into March. It's not over yet but tomorrow's forecast is looking like the first actual mild almost spring-like day since this whole long winter fiasco began. Here in the highlands we've had more than our fair share of cold, more than our fair share of wind, and more than our fair share of snow. The snow has to be somewhere close to four feet deep in the woods. The snowbanks are huge. There's snow on the ground that fell early in November along with snow that fell nearly every week since. A winter like this leaves me almost unable to remember what a warm day actually feels like.

So I thought it might be interesting to demonstrate one way we Mainers remember what the word "warm" means...

There are two Maines. There's northern Maine represented by the Bangor Daily News and there's southern Maine represented chiefly by the Portland Press Herald. I live in northern Maine. Here, we tend to think of that other Maine as just an extension of Massachusetts which we can get away with doing because most people down Portland way either think of us as their playground or don't think of us at all, off the radar screen entirely. So I'm speaking here of northern Maine. Winter is a whole different ballgame down there. They actually get frequent breaks from the cold and snow. We haven't seen bare ground since last October. They have.

So here's something I recently noticed in the Bangor Daily News reminding us northern Mainers of how warm nature is:

From last weekend's Bangor Daily News, Maine lobster harvest value jumps by $46 million
This article points out that 120 million pounds of marketable lobsters were hauled in by Maine lobster fishermen (and women) last year, up from 112 million pounds in 2017, a figure far higher than back in the late 1980's when roughly 20 million pounds per year were being reported. The article goes on to suggest this level of harvest is likely not sustainable but here's the thing. It's not overfishing of the resource that's the problem. It's... here it comes... because of "climate change" which we all know really means Global Warming!

So it doesn't really matter which way you take this news. If you accept the warming ocean perspective, you can be comforted in knowing it's just a freak winter. There's still hope for a warmer future. But even if you don't accept that notion you can get warm or even hot under the collar when you see "news" like this attributing the expected decline in a Maine resource not to its actual likely cause, overharvesting, but rather to this Socialist-perpetrated myth called "climate change".

Monday, March 11, 2019

Painfully Familiar

Today my wife and I rehashed the same old argument we've hashed over for the past twenty or more years. Each time we do it there's more clarity for me about what is actually going on. I wish I could say the same for her but the signs of progress are never there. Every time we have the talk it always ends the same way with her convincing herself that I am oppressively victimizing her and that the whole thing just needs to be forgotten so she can go on running her life... and mine... using all her usual tricks - tricks that she learned from her parents, both of whom were the dominant type, covertly of course.
I kind of think of myself as someone who needs a mate who walks beside me, not ahead of me or behind me but beside me. I need someone who will communicate with me rationally. My wife's not like that. She thinks reason is just another tool of manipulators. When I try to reason with her she convinces herself that I'm trying to manipulate her. It doesn't seem to even cross her mind that I'm trying to enlighten her and myself about the nature of our problems. Instead she resists using her arsenal of tricks and in the end feigns submission and short circuits the whole discussion.
I came up with an analogy today, something I've never thought of before. You all know what a "black hole" is in astronomy. If not, look it up. So I asked myself what becomes of God's love when it gets sucked into a black hole. If I were to guess, my guess is that it's never seen again. The analogy is that the kind of lifestyle where everything is perceived as a matter of dominance and submission is in essence a black hole, especially when it comes to love. Feed love into that mindset and whatever the result, it's not love. Dominance/submission sucks love right out of existence.
My wife didn't take it very well when I brought that to her attention. She thinks the lack of love is all my doing.

Well after our talk someone I was listening to mentioned this discussion on YouTube. It's painful to watch, but oh my god does this ever seem like a perfect example of what it's like when I try to discuss our marital problems with my wife. I had to turn it off after a half hour or so. I relate to the interviewer, Candace Owens. She's interviewing the head of Black Lives Matter who uses every trick in the book to paint Blacks as victims in order to rationalize their anger. Candice is known in part for her insistence that victimhood really isn't a good way to get ahead in this world. She's trying to enlighten while he tries to invalidate her and dominate the conversation in order to justify Black victimhood.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying Black Lives Matter doesn't have some valid points. Candace isn't saying that either. What I am saying is that using tricks to dominate a conversation rather than using reason and dialog to enlighten really is unpleasant. It's a turn-off. Dominance/submission is a huge turn-off.
So yeah, this is how my wife and I talk over our problems...The Candace Owens Show: Hawk Newsome

Tuesday, February 26, 2019

On the Menu Today

On today's menu is a simple thing. Sardines canned in oil served with Stubb's Original barbeque sauce.
Also Kayem Old Time Reds steamed and then fried in this morning's Jamaica spiced maple flavored bacon slow fried with fresh garlic and onion served with generous mustard and relish on my own wheat bran bread.

Monday, February 18, 2019

Green New Deal

In the news this past week or two there has been a proposal for the U.S. government to adopt a "Green New Deal" that is in essence a Socialist wet dream in order to save planet earth from carbon emissions.

This Green New Deal is primarily being championed by the greenest of the greenhorns in congress, New York City's own Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez who is also being credited this week with sabotaging a bid by Amazon (dot com) to add 25,000 new jobs for her own constituents in New York City - but that's another story.

The Green New Deal proves in a single sweep of the magic wand what conservatives have tried to prove without much success for two decades, that "Global Warming" and "Climate Change" are a Socialist construct, a hoax intended to convince Americans that either America adopts socialism or the planet will be destroyed by carbon dioxide.

The hope is that Americans will adopt irreversible socialist changes before they realize that Climate Change and Global Warming are contrivances conceived and promoted by elite Socialist educators.

The Green New Deal isn't about saving the planet. By their own calculations it's already too late for that. It is instead a fear mongering technique to advance a bold proposal for Socialism in America.

Climate Science as we know it has been hijacked by Socialists. The secret is now front page news. Thank you Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for making that point so clearly.

Sunday, February 17, 2019

Insight from 1969, the year of the Summer of Love

Wednesday, February 06, 2019

Women in White

I stayed up till about 10:30 last night watching the State of the Union address by President Trump. Even before Trump entered I was aware of Nancy Polosi, majority leader of the House, dressed in glaring white. Later on, during Trump's speech, the cameras started working the floor of the house and it was evident that a large group of women on the Left had joined forces with their leader in solidarity in their white attire. For most of Trump's speech they all sat stone-faced in opposition to Trump's words.
While the white attire was supposed to be symbolic of the Women's Suffrage movement, it came across to me more like white women against Trump. While it's not OK to be a white male in America anymore, it's perfectly fine to be white if you are a woman. In fact, white women represent the new majority power in this country. I'm guessing that was the true meaning of the symbolism evident on the House floor last night, although you'd never get anybody to admit it.
In any case, Trump being Trump, there was a moment in Trump's address where women were compelled by simple human decency to give up their childish stone-faced socialistic stance and join in the celebration of being American.
Courtesy of the New York Times:Women in White Give Themselves Standing Ovation

Of course the mainstream media went sleepless last night figuring ways to invalidate this moment of American solidarity.

Saturday, February 02, 2019

Mind the Matrix

Thursday, January 31, 2019

Paradox

In my 1982 version of Webster's New World Dictionary the word "paradox" is immediately preceded by the words "paradigm" and "paradise". Dictionaries are so cool.

In any case, the word "paradox" seems to be exactly what it means. The word's meaning - in this dictionary at least - seems to contradict itself. Perhaps in a perfect world, paradise, there would be an easily perceived paradigm shift that would make this not be a contradiction?

The contradiction I speak of is this.
The first definition given is, "a statement that seems contradictory, absurd, etc. but may be true in fact".
The second definition given is, "a statement that contradicts itself and is false".
There is a third definition but these two seem adequate to validate my claim, I would think. Is a paradox a statement that is true or is it a statement that is false or do those two definitions not contradict one another? What a paradox!
The third definition given is, "a person, situation, etc. that seems inconsistent or full of contradictions".
How true...

Tuesday, January 29, 2019

Roger Stone Fox News and CNN

Well here is a video that should be archived for eternity. Fox News's Tucker Carlson reviews how it happened that CNN just happened to be on hand to let people around the world witness a travesty of justice.
If you can, please watch this video. It's only a few minutes long.

Monday, January 28, 2019

Why Hillary Lost in 2016

Followers of the mainstream media have, for the past two years, been mystified by the defeat of Hillary Clinton in 2016 to Donald Trump. Hillary's supporters including the mainstream media have been telling the world that Russia did it. Had it not been for Russian interference, Hillary would have easily defeated Donald Trump, or so they claim.
Back in 2016 it was my own personal opinion that Hillary didn't stand a chance against Trump. I was surprised and dismayed by how close the vote actually was. I don't think I was alone in that sentiment either.
But why, you ask - or at least you should be asking if you are a follower of mainstream media. Why was I surprised that Hillary got as many votes as she did?

How could Trump have possibly won?

Perhaps, if you are curious, you might find some insight in some of these YouTube videos posted and viewed prior to the election.

Believe me, there were many more like these.
Oddly enough these aren't conspiracy theories. These are observed facts that voters in America were pondering when deciding who to vote for.

And what did the Democrats have to counter these facts?The Access Hollywood Tape
There were many left wing conspiracy theories about Donald Trump's sex life including many mischaracterizations of what Trump was actually saying in that tape. I look at that tape and say that's a pretty disgusting way of talking about women but I see it as just that, Trump talking about the bimbos that chase rich men around for their money, not how he actually treated women. Nobody has ever shown me in that tape where Trump says he liked to do those things to women. Yes he admits to falling for a woman's beauty to the point of offering to lavishly reward her, but that's it. The rest is about dipshit money grabbing women in general.
By the way, liberated women don't have much respect for that kind of woman either so what's the big deal?

Yes we went to the polls and plugged our noses and prayed to God for the best, but we knew we had to defeat Hillary.
That's the real reason why she lost, just in case you have forgotten, or never knew.

Seth Rich

My YouTube gift for today was a video published on May 24, 2017 by a favorite of mine - reallygraceful - concerning the murder in the summer of 2016 of a DNC staffer who, in the opinion of many, was the person who leaked the DNC emails to Wikileaks, an act that has been blamed on Donald Trump and the evil Russians. The latest poo on the subject has Roger Stone somehow at the center of focus. Roger Stone was arrested last Friday in grand fashion witnessed mysteriously by CNN as if it was political theater staged for the masses to prove Trump's guilt.

Anyway, this reallygraceful video is the best summery I have ever seen of the Seth Rich murder mystery. What she reveals puts the mainstream media's coverage of the event to shame.

Saturday, January 19, 2019

Today's Ride

Thursday, January 17, 2019

Motorcycle Adventure

If I hadn't taken a nap today I might be asleep by now. Instead here I am watching a bunch of guys motorcycling in the Himalayas!Himalayan Motorcycle Adventure - Full movie
So I just subscribed to their MAD channel. I almost think motorcycle adventure videos might be my newest addiction.

Larger than Life

I was just moving a few things around in my room when I came to my MaiSto 1949 Ford convertible. Since coming across the remains of one such Ford, me being a true 49'r and all, it has grown on me that it would be a perfect car for me. I'd settle for its cousins like maybe that era of Thunderbird that, as I recall, one of my daughter's high school friends drove around for awhile. A coupe would do. Did they make those in convertibles back then? The Miata came out in what, '89, 90, and this Thunderbird must have been more recent than those.
What else might qualify for me, a Mustang convertible for sure. The '49 had flathead V-8s. I used to drive a '97 Ford pickup with the 4.6 and that engine always reminded me of the old flathead V-8 that I learned to drive a truck with, somehow it had torque similar to the old flathead. Any Mustang since, was it '95?, offered that engine design, or at least I assume it was the same design, from '95 on up to when they upgraded the 5.0 for the Mustang V-8. I'm sure a gas-sipping V-6 does just fine in a Mustang but there'd be more potential for excitement with the energy of a V-8 Ford carrying me around.

Anyway when I went to move this '49 off the top of a low bookcase I pictured what I might paint it if I had one for real and was thinking of colors. This model is dark gray and cream inside and a cream cover over the retracted roof. I'd be open to colors inside whatever car I had but if I painted her in yellow and white she'd be my daisy, a sleeper car. I'd drive her very slowly, you might even call it being lazy. So I think her name would be Lazy Daisy. Good name for a car don't you think?

My mind is into motion at the moment and I know the reason why. I just finished watching the most active take you along for the ride comedy maybe even ever. Bill Murray is the star but his costar is an elephant and she is absolutely charming!Larger than Life

Wednesday, January 16, 2019

Hey Democrats

Saturday, January 12, 2019

Whitewash Day

One of the first things I noticed today when browsing the news was that there all of a sudden seemed to be a sea change in the mainstream media's coverage of the Russiagate story. I didn't save the news link but the headline seemed to indicate some sort of media apologetics explaining how the FBI was justified in opening its investigation of Trump on suspicion that he and his campaign during the 2016 election had colluded with leaders in the Russian government. I didn't read the article. Why should I? It was clearly just another dump on Trump by the media.
But it's evening now and I had some time so I Googled to see what might come up. Low and behold there was a New York Times story published yesterday (January 11, 2019) titled, according to a Fox News report today, "F.B.I. Opened Inquiry into Whether Trump was Secretly Working on Behalf of Russia".
It's not clear what prompted the New York Times to publish this apology for the FBI but just the day before, on Thursday, RT posted this video on YouTube suggesting some seriously erroneous reporting on the part of the New York Times concerning Russiagate.
Anyway, the New York Times article published yesterday and other mainstream news articles published today seem to be saying that the FBI opened its investigation of Trump after Trump fired FBI Director James Comey, something Trump didn't have the power to do until he had been sworn into office. He was sworn in on January 20, 2017. Here's a New York Times article dated May 9, 2017 reporting on Trump's firing of Comey.
I feel as though I have just been transported into George Orwell's 1984 nightmare.
Why?
Well because in the May 9, 2017 article, the New York Times reported that the FBI was investigating Trump for suspected collusion with Russia before Trump fired Comey, yet in yesterday's article the New York Times reported that the FBI investigation of Trump didn't start until after Trump had fired Comey.
So what gives?
If you ask me, and I am clearly biased by the attention I have been paying over the past three years to alternative media coverage of this story, the mainstream media is using this new version of their story to convince the public that the FBI investigation was justified because of the firing of the FBI director when the truth is that there was no justification at all - proof being that the New York Times felt the need to publish this deceptive rewrite of the narrative yesterday. The Mainstream media is deceiving us by failing to mention when the FBI actually began its investigation and making us think the reason was valid when in fact it was quite likely an illegal political abuse of FBI power justifying FBI director Comey's firing.
The job held by the main character in Orwell's 1984, if I remember correctly, was to rewrite the news to fit Big Brother's current narrative. How is this any different?

Monday, January 07, 2019

Draining the Swamp

YouTube offered me a video this morning that has me wondering why there aren't more people out there speaking the truth about government. I mean, this is the "Information Age" so why do people find it so difficult to calmly, clearly, yet eloquently and professionally speak truth to government."Political Corruption: Can the Swamp Be Drained?" - Kimberley Strassel

I fail to understand why it is more important in the public eye to publish the idea that Donald Trump had said, long before being the President, that he thought Paris Hilton looked sexy the first time he saw her. Snopes, whose veracity I trust just about as far as I could throw a full-grown elephant, addressed this claim and posted a hugely deceptive photograph of the young lady at or about the time of the encounter Trump speaks of, although in the photo she appears younger than 12. You can bet she didn't look little girlish to catch Trump's eye. But when asked if he wanted to bang her, Trump replied, quoting from Snopes (mind you he said this back in 2003):
“Well, at 12, I wasn’t interested,” Trump said, “I’ve never been into that … I’ve always stuck around that 25 category … but she was beautiful.”

But somehow this is important enough news this morning to make the headlines. The mainstream media can overlook the latest move by the left to legitimize pedophilia, at least according to some well-known alternative media voices, but Donald Trump, at some point in his adult life, thinking some girl looks sexy even though he's never been into that kind of thing, well that's headline news. Look at what a disgusting man our president is, eh?! The big boys and girls calling the shots in the mainstream media can overlook the fact that Obama's long-form birth certificate was generated years after Obama became President by a computer rather than by a photocopier, but a president who in his lifetime has been able to recognize a beautiful female when he sees one, oh my, oh my! What to think!

By the way, I was stunned by a twelve-year-old one time in my life too. Just once. She looked nothing like the girl in that Snopes photo. She didn't look 12, or 10, or whatever age you might guess the girl in that photo was. She could have easily passed for an 18 year-old, and a stunner at that.

Wednesday, January 02, 2019

The Googlesphere

Sunday, December 30, 2018

Better than Me

What do you do when you finally realize that the woman you have been married to for the past forty years just can't find it in herself to overcome the fact that she has to be better than who you actually are? What do you do when it's not just her, when it's also the people she respects more than any other people in the world - her family - her mother, her father, her brothers, her sons, her daughter, her church friends and leaders, her spiritual friends? Where does that leave you?
Do you remain her disdained subordinate?
She can't change who she is. She can't. And you are who you are. You'll never be what she thinks you should be or could have been. She has a deep personal need to be more than you, to be above you looking down. She can't change who she is and you are who you are. And any suggestion that there's something that she and you need to talk about is stonewalled.
So what do you do?
What do you do when you have no place else to go and she won't leave?

Disdain for the Mundane

Two days left in the year 2018 counting today. 2019 is the year I turn seventy if I live that long.
I write here not with the authority of post-graduate education or a long practice in the field of therapy but from personal experience, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week for over forty years.

I just pinned an index card on the door to my bedroom. This door opens from the kitchen so the note will be hard to ignore. The card has this written on it, "Disdain for the mundane".

Well, not exactly, I write most notes in all caps, so it's more like:

DISDAIN

FOR THE

MUNDANE

Hard to miss... I used a black Sharpie.

Google that term and you mostly get a film titled "Disdain the Mundane". Or here's a link to a sticky note that seems to reinforce what I think most people feel about the mundane side of life. The message seems to be it's a positive thing in your life when you have disdain for the mundane things in life, in other words, avoid the mundane side of life. Make your life exciting!

Disdain

"a feeling of contempt for someone or something regarded as unworthy or inferior"

The key here is that disdain is a feeling directed outward towards an object which can be either a person or a thing.

When you are seeking to experience your life, disdain for mundane things in life is generally perceived as a positive thing.

But in a relationship between two people, disdain towards the other person is generally a negative thing to feel. It hurts the person who is the object of the disdain. This kind of disdain is what is at the heart of all racism.

Note:

For anyone who is triggered by my use of the word "object" when referring to a person, please understand I'm speaking of basic grammar here, subject/verb/object. I'm not suggesting that people are things.

Mundane

So what about the mundane? What does that word mean?

When I think of the mundane I think of things like, maybe, small routine chores, sweeping the floor, picking up your clothes, making the bed, throwing out all your junk mail, washing or vacuuming or emptying out the junk from the car - clipping my fingernails, you know? All these things either should be or must be done but they seem like such a waste of time. They don't begin to compare with things like being in Fenway Park during a game or going to a concert when you enjoy the artist. Then again, even these exciting spectator-related things are mundane to the actual athletes and artists performing for their audiences.

Am I right? Are you following here?

Google just offered me this remarkable list of synonyms for the adjective use of the word "mundane":

As a contrast, Google offered me only two antonyms, extraordinary and imaginative.

So is it any wonder why I like to use Jamaican Jerk seasoning when I fry bacon? It turns plain-Jane ho-hum bacon into something extraordinary.

So with that list of synonyms is it any wonder why people generally disdain the mundane?

The problem is, even though washing and waxing the car and spiffing it up inside is tedious mundane work, a shiny clean car inside and out is an extraordinary thing for people who respect and love cars.

Same goes for a home. There's a small heart-shaped sign hanging on the wall just outside the main entrance to my house that says, "A clean house is a sign of a misspent life!" It would be reasonable to assume that at least one of the people living in this house thinks housecleaning is mundane.

Am I right?

Yet living in a clean house is an extraordinary experience. It's not mundane at all. Sure house cleaning can be seen as being mundane, but completing the chore results in something quite nice. Clutter and dirt are experienced by the mind as cognitive dissonance. Spend enough time in that kind of environment and the mind just shuts down, learns not to even see the mess. The reality of the mess is still there and the subconscious mind is aware of it but the conscious mind just doesn't see it anymore. Life takes on a whole new dimension once the mess is actually gone and the cognitive dissonance is gone from your life. There is a paradigm shift involved.

There was a movie years ago, 1984 actually, "The Karate Kid", which, if I remember correctly, addresses this paradigm shift. This kid needs to learn karate so he finds a master to teach him. Problem is, the master knows that mastery and excellence in karate requires mastery of the mundane. The kid just can't handle this view. He feels disdain for the mundane. The kid can't get anywhere with the master until he overcomes that feeling of disdain.

When I Googled "disdain for the mundane this morning, Google gave me this link to an article written from something of a Christian perspective. I'm inclined to think this is backing me up here.

So now that we have defined "disdain" and "mundane", why is there an index card on my bedroom door that says, "Disdain for the mundane"?

Years ago there was another index card in the kitchen that just said "DISDAIN". It stayed there for a long time. I put it there when it finally dawned on me that disdain was what my wife and her mother and to a lesser degree my wife's father and brothers and then eventually my own sons and finally my daughter had been smothering me in all those years of my marriage. That card has been gone for awhile but the disdain comes and goes, or at least seems to go, seems to come back, but maybe is always present but hidden behind the mask.

If you've followed this blog you know that I perceive my wife and her mother as narcissists, covert and otherwise. Just recently I watched a self-help YouTube video that validated for me the concept that disdain is a tool used by narcissists. It's strange to say that in a sense. It seems so hypocritical, reason being that I generate within myself this feeling of disdain, but the object of my disdain is narcissism itself. I have disdain for those who attempt to manipulate me and control me by using disdain to put me down. This disdain that I feel is especially strong for covert narcissism and passive covert aggression.

But where does the "mundane" come in? Why does that index card say "Disdain for the mundane"?

Are you ready for this? Are you heading down this rabbit hole with me?

Thursday, December 27, 2018

Christmas Narcissism

I had another go-round this Christmas with my narcissistic wife and her narcissistic mother that has led me to a couple of insightful obscenities.

One:
Christmas is to narcissists what Halloween is to vampires...
The ideal opportunity

meaning a narcissist can use Christmas to practice their dominance because anyone who resists will be seen as causing a stink in the family gathering, and the family will perceive the initiator of that stink as an asshole.

Two:
A successful narcissist becomes their victim's disability.

Ask anyone who has suffered through a relationship with a narcissist what that means.

Thursday, December 06, 2018

Blog Worth Music

Wednesday, November 21, 2018

Awake in the Night 11/21/18

I woke up in the night and found that I had left my computer on. It had been playing a parade of videos while I slept so I walked it back to a video I had remembered watching. I took notes.
Here's what I found:

Tuesday, November 13, 2018

Another Day of Global Warming

I've been sort of just hiding out in the house today. The shades are drawn and I've had little inclination to open them. Why? Because it's snowing. It snowed Saturday too but not as much as today. I swear there's close to a foot of new snow out there. The snowblower is still broken too.

The fact is it shouldn't be snowing this much this early in the season. It should be warmer. It should be raining.

Why?

Because of Global Warming, like duhhh…

Did you know that there are rational educated professionals and scientists who don't think Global Warming is valid science?

No?

97 percent of all scientists living on this planet believe in Global Warming?

Well weren't that fun, shoveling snow in the drizzle. This sudden transition from mid autumn to winter has me in a bit of culture shock. Well more like depression but culture shock is a good euphemism.
For years I have used those wide-bladed aluminum grain shovels for shoveling snow. Did I say years? I meant decades. When the snowblower isn't working it's shovel time. Today's snow was the kind of snow where I wound up using car wax on the shovel blade. An aluminum shovel isn't very light with heavy wet snow stuck to it. I did wind up cheating though. Over half of the driveway I just packed down with the Subaru. That was a test, by the way. We bought the car (a 2006 Outback) this summer and I bought new 4-season Pirelli tires for it a month or so back so I wanted to see just how well the car did in seven or eight inches of damp snow. It passed with flying colors!

So then I went to bed and turned on the electric blanket and watched music videos on YouTube, the blues. You know, I think I just figured out what it is about music that impresses me so much, I mean besides the talent it takes to make good music. It's that music turns sound into substance. In my mind the substance is a flowing liquid magic infused with feelings and ideas that lift the spirit. It's food for the soul.
My cup runneth over with blues.

Energy Abundance

Sunday, November 11, 2018

The Crock Pot

Hey we got something new yesterday. We went shopping in Bangor and stopped by the Goodwill store.
Did I say new? It's not exactly new. It's a Crock Pot, an original Rival. Hard to tell how old it is but I'm thinking by the scratches in the paint on the back side this thing has spent decades pushed back against the wall on someone's grandmother's counter. So gramma passed it on and granddaughter sold it at the yard sale and whoever bought it had it for a dozen years and never used it and finally gave it to Goodwill. It doesn't seem to have much use on it. The plastic cover is still transparent, as opposed to the translucent cover on the other one that was there.
I washed it and am cooking a beef roast with carrots and an onion and chopped celery and tons of spices for the trial run.
First thing I noticed when I got it turned on was that there was no indicator to show that it's on, not even a little red light, and certainly no digital control panel. There is one rotary switch where the pointer can point to Off, Low, or High. That's it, simple as that. I do love simple. It's like OK what is there about a 1991 Mazda Miata that appeals to me the most. It's that the car is simple.

Sunday, September 23, 2018

Hidden

Just imagine, both China and Russia and for all we know Iran are already advancing these technologies while the zillionaires rich on oil want us to destroy their nations. Yet we are refusing to advance this technology ourselves.

Kavanaugh

I'm going to go out on a limb here and do some speculating...
I get anti-Trump emails on a regular basis from The Washington Post and in an email from them today there was this headline, "Kavanaugh accuser Christine Blasey Ford moved 3,000 miles to reinvent her life. It wasn't far enough." It seems that she had told her husband, "I cannot live in this country if he's in the Supreme Court".
If this is true, I find it hard to believe that what she is saying is that she cannot live in a country where drunken seventeen year-old boys attempt to grope girls at teenage alcohol parties. I mean good luck finding that utopian feminist paradise in this world! OK so maybe if she submitted herself to the burka and lived in Saudi Arabia where a fifteen year-old girl discovered in that position would be stoned to death or something but you tell me where in the world drunk seventeen-year-old boys don't do outrageous things to fifteen-year-old girls foolish enough to hang out at alcohol parties. And I do mean foolish when I say foolish.
Girls that put themselves in these situations are nothing short of fools.
That said, I'm thinking that it wouldn't be very likely that a rational person would have to go to that much of an extreme to get away from Judge Kavanaugh. Why would any rational person insist on destroying the career and reputation of someone who groped her one time when she was drinking? And why would she need to leave the country if her ploy didn't work?
There has to be something else motivating her, don't you think?
But what?
It's not just the Pussy Hat paranoia about White males. That doesn't explain what she is feeling. She, a White female born in the U.S.A., would have to leave the country if another White male were on the Supreme Court? Not likely!
So what?

It does appear that this Ms. Ford is politically aligned with the Left and one of the primary objections the Left has been making about the nomination of Judge Kavanaugh is that he could vote to reverse the Supreme Court decision on a woman's right to have a safe abortion in the U.S.A.

What if, and this is just speculation, but what if this particular woman had at some earlier point in her life gotten pregnant and had an abortion and what if, as many suggest can happen, this woman had guilt feelings about what she had done to her unborn child and what if in an attempt to shift the blame and the guilt off of herself she blamed the Pro-Life Right for the guilt she felt? Then how would she feel about living in a country where abortion was not just shameful but illegal as well?

What might that motivate such a woman to do politically?

Now last time I knew a guy, no matter how virile and threatening he might be, can't get a girl pregnant by groping her. So she's not accusing him of getting her pregnant, not that I can see at least. So if she did somehow get herself knocked up it would have been in another situation with another guy. Maybe that would be a good place to start if she insists on pushing this thing too far.

"Have you ever had an abortion?"

"If so, when?"

"Who was the guy?"

"What were the circumstances?"

Not to mention the obvious questions:

"What were you doing at an alcohol party when you were fifteen years old!"

"How often did you do things like that?"

"Was that enough to stop you and knock some sense into your head or did you keep doing crap like that?"

"How many abortions did you wind up needing to have?"

"Did you ever take personal responsibility for the choices and mistakes you made?"

Of course maybe it's not her herself that she is concerned about. Maybe she never had to face an abortion herself. Maybe she's thinking of all the other young women who wind up in situations like this. But if so, why would she herself have to leave America if Kavanaugh became a Supreme Court judge?

Never again trust the Left unless you subscribe to this notion, "The end justifies the means."